AUSTRALIANS AT WAR

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Tuesday, May 11, 2010

IS THE U.S. PREPARING TO ESCALATE THEIR WAR IN PAKISTAN?

Much Western media attention has been devoted to the Saturday, 1 May, failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square.

As I wrote recently, had the bomb been set up by some ‘white Christian American-born American the story by now would be just a sheet of newspaper blowing around in the wind up the side streets of New York’. But because it was apparently set up by a Muslim Pakistani-American, the story has been used by the American anti-Islam propaganda machine to point the finger of blame to the Pakistan Taliban.

Today, however, the US is pushing the line that the attempted bombing was a concerted and highly organised effort by the Pakistan Taliban to attack America. And, just to top it off, Bill Roggio, a neocon writer at the Weekly Standard is claiming that the Pakistan Taliban personally emailed him to tell him that they were responsible for the training of the suspect and setting up of the bombing attempt. Roggio makes no attempt whatsoever to explain why on earth the Pakistan Taliban, after having denied all knowledge of the bombing, would want to email, of all people, a nondescript neoconservative writer at the Weekly Standard to tell him that they were responsible.

The Murdoch press is also doing its bit to propagate the myth of a Pakistan Taliban connection to the bombing attempt by using the story to spin the notion of the Pakistan Taliban being an entity in its own right distinct from the Afghanistan Taliban. Sally Neighbour of Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper, Australia’s only nation-wide newspaper, tells readers:

While policy-makers in the US and Australia have adopted the buzzword "Af-Pak" to conflate the conflicts ravaging those countries, it is clear the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while inextricably bound together, must be treated as distinct.

This is something the US and Australia have been trying to do for at least 18 months now. It was then that an Australian First Assistant Secretary for International Policy told me that ‘Pakistan is going to become a big problem that the allies will need to deal with sometime’. All they need is an excuse to widen their war to include Pakistan. The bombing attempt in Times Square clearly is now being used as that excuse.

For Western governments it’s very easy to say, ‘intelligence agencies now have firm evidence…’ but then tells us that, for security reasons, they can’t actually show us the evidence; we’re simply expected to just take their word for it. And, of course, most people will go along with what the government tells them.

For the Americans, securing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons arsenal is essential. However, they need to tread very carefully. The Taliban, especially in the north, enjoy the support generally of the Pakistan people; particularly when it comes to fighting Americans. US drone strikes against Pakistanis that have killed civilians have served only to alienate the Pakistani people further and has put pressure on the Pakistan government. American money and support for the Pakistan government is now really all that is keeping the government in power and on side with the US.

The US is anxious to get more boots on the ground in Pakistan though clearly Pakistan is not a country that could be invaded (even if the US had the capacity or the inclination to do so). The alternative is to get the Pakistan government to invite much larger numbers of ‘trainers’ and ‘advisors’ into the country. Already there are large numbers of private contractors there who are supposed to be there to protect those few advisors that are already there and other US diplomats and officials that are based in Pakistan.

The US need to consolidate their position in Pakistan in order to ensure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal remains secure and that a US-friendly government remains in power.

An opportunity that arises that may advance opportunities for the US administration to move forward with these aims and gain support from a disinterested and war-weary American public will be eagerly seized upon – and a Pakistan Taliban-inspired bomb in Times Square is just the sort of event that the administration could hope for to advance their plans.

7 comments:

Unfortunately I cannot explain why the Taliban chose me. I can only guess. I was the only person reporting that Hakeemullah Mehsud, the TTP leader, was not killed in the Jan. 14 strike. I consistently did so for four months. I also have been very critical of Pakistani and US government reports of killed AQ and Taliban leaders over the past several years. (Yes, pre-Obama, I don't do politics). I suspect this was my "reward" so to speak. My website has a wide reading among jihadis as well as people on the other side of the fight. Al Qaeda has published my photographs in a martyrdom tape of a former Gitmo detainee who detonated at a base in Mosul in 2008 (I was embedded with the Iraqi Army a the time). So I know they read.

The emails sent to me by the Taliban spokesman/propagandist were published by The Weekly Standard. I will also forward them to you if you wish. Email me back and let me know.

Mr. Lataan,I am Lisa McBride, an editor for Axis of Logic. I've been poking through your website and really appreciate your viewpoints. I noted that you have given permission to re-pub;lish your work as long as proper attribution is given.

In that light, I've taken the liberty of republishing this piece-http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_59803.shtml

Please let me know if any changes need to be made- you can contact me at:lisa at axisoflogic dot com

Damian Lataan speaks of a "disinterested and war-weary American public"- he means uninterested- we could use more disinterested writers- and if he wants to be really accurate, he might have said "an uninterested and undeclared-war-weary American public. Indeed we expected a great deal more than jokes about using Predator drones for extra-juridicial executions by someone who actually once taught Constitutional Law, but when it comes to casual killing, Obama appears as heartless as George Bush making fun of Karla Faye Tucker sitting on Death Row. So it should be no surprise that he would nominate a woman who has indicated she equates contributions to a Pakistani charity whose succor might have included angry Muslims with fostering terrorism(one can practically hear the Predator droning its way there already). Americans were not expecting a quantum leap in the national debt with Obama, they were expecting a diversion of some of the billions spent on a single B-2 bomber for schools, rotten bridges and levees, children, the homeless. This has been a betrayal on the part of the Democrats, and it will cost them dearly in November, even as the warmongers continue to flourish

Damian, there was no bombing attempt at all. What the NYPD found in the Nissan SUV in the first instance was burnt out fireworks expressly designed to make smoke, a propane canister, a can of petrol, and fertilizer which - laughably - could not be used for explosive purposes !

So much for explosives training by the Pakistani Taliban of Faisal Shahzad.

Given that the smoke making fireworks item would have had a yellow/orange glowing point of origin there is no question that the can of petrol and the propane canister would have had their outlet points tightly screwed down lest otherwise the petrol/propane/air mix in that enclosed space of the SUV could have potentially been set off by that glowing point resulting in a tremendous explosive fireball violently bursting open the SUV with deaths and injuries to passersby.

That outcome the intel feared more than anything, feared so much that instead of having a regular packet of ammonium nitrate they had a fertilizer which had no pyrotechnic properties whatsoever. I mean to say that what they likely feared was that if they had ammonium nitrate there it might have been possible accidentally for the petrol to have spilled on to it, resulting in a potent mix for the firework to ignite.

They were actually being overcautious, which overcaution inadvertantly revealed the perps as being themselves !

Now why would intel care if passersby got killed ? Nine years ago they obviously wouldn't, as they stood by and watched Mossad set up the Twin Towers with nano thermite explosives, but now they know all this sh!t is coming out via the people's net, and there's gonna be serious people's courts nailing these govt funded criminals who either `aided and abetted` the murder of US citizens, or committed these murders themselves, and they don't want to be in the latter category.

That is why this Times Square car bombing non attempt was so designed as to make that impossible.*****Damian, the other one needed an edit.

Damian, you were just leading me along, for how could you lose not one but two comments, and now delaying interminably the replacement to the better of the two to the point that no one will see it anyway.

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
All material on this site is available for use without permission but it would be appreciated if the source is acknowledged.